Bristol City: Robins chief Mark Ashton brings alignment and unity to City's transfer deals a_stockhausen please log in to view this image BRISTOL City supporters will no doubt be relieved to hear that those responsible for player recruitment within the club are once again singing from the same hymn sheet. The changing of the managerial guard that saw Steve Cotterill and Keith Burt depart Ashton Gate to be replaced by Lee Johnson and Mark Ashton has, to all intents and purposes, ushered in a new age of realism If Cotterill and Burt are to be construed as victims of a botched recruitment policy that served to render City's return to the Championship more hazardous than it might otherwise have been, it is easy to see Johnson and Ashton as the harbingers of a new way of conducting transfer business. Impatient to reach the Premier League, City's manager and director of football set their sights high last summer, targeting a series of high-profile players, among them Dwight Gayle, Andre Gray, Harry Maguire, Paul Konchesky and Mark Bunn. When those individuals either opted to stay put or move to bigger clubs, Cotterill and Burt, having wasted crucial time pursuing unrealistic targets, were forced to adopt Plan B and fall back upon the vagaries of the loan market to address crucial imbalances within an under-manned squad. As the Robins struggled to pick up points in the Championship, it quickly became evident that the manager and his board of directors were on different pages when it came to player recruitment. please log in to view this image With the advent of head coach Johnson and chief operating officer Ashton, that is no longer the case. The new buzzword inside the corridors of power is "alignment" and Ashton is at pains to highlight the common purpose that now unites majority shareholder Steve Lansdown, his board of directors and the football department. While Ashton refuses to discuss what happened in the past, he is quite prepared to talk about the new way of doing things. He explained: "If you are not aligned, it curtails your ability to move quickly and it delays the process. The minute the industry finds out you are looking at a certain player, and it will come out, then you are in a feeding frenzy. "We have to get one or two steps ahead of the market and that means us all being aligned in that process. I really do think we have that. "We have real clarity from Steve Lansdown, the board are aligned with that and Lee and I work to the same process and refine it all the time." "If everyone is aligned, then the job is going to be a whole lot easier. The board and the owner also have to be a part of the process and there is no chance that Lee or I will come up with a name that will shock or surprise them. It is absolutely key that we have unity and a set way of working, and sharing information is pivotal. If we get that right, we take the angst away." If Lansdown and his directors are required to finance future transfers and Ashton's job is to facilitate the deals, Johnson will have the final say on any player coming into the club. please log in to view this image Ashton explains: "I do not spot the talent - I am the man who controls the process that bring those names to the table. I then liaise with the agents and with the clubs and arrange the finance. "From a football perspective, it is very important that Lee has the final say on players. I top and tail the deals, Lee has the final football say in players coming into the club and the board and the owner are aware of the process. If we are all on the same page, which I think we are, then it becomes easier for us to compete in what is a difficult market." Rejected by players who did not perceive Ashton Gate as a desirable destination, City resorted to introspection and self-analysis in a bid to make sense of their shortcomings in the transfer market. Fans questioned the ambition of the board, while Cotterill spoke in terms of not being able to compete financially and perceptions. Was Ashton Gate an unfashionable destination, or were City merely guilty of pursuing unrealistic targets, players who were always going to join bigger and wealthier clubs? It is a theme Ashton has picked up on since taking up his new role in January. He said: "People seem to be concerned that there is this perception that good players do not want to come to Bristol City. As someone who has been in the industry all his working life, I don't see that and I don't feel that. "Bristol City is a big football club and, potentially, an even bigger football club. Do not under-estimate how big this club is within the industry. "I spent two days in London with all the big agents earlier this month, having a coffee with them, re-introducing myself and talking to them about the players they want to move on in the summer, in order that we can be ahead of the game. "They are all excited about Bristol City, because they see the club as one of the last sleeping giants, one of the last really big clubs with a huge fan base not to have made it to the Premier League." An ambitious £48m scheme to redevelop is nearing completion and a modern, 27,000 all-seat venue will not only prove attractive to players but also enable the club to grow its various revenue streams in the future. Ashton admits: "The big piece in the jigsaw that remains to be put in place is making sure we have the right infrastructure in the football department to bring progressive growth. That is essentially the way forward for us and people outside of Bristol see what is happening. "Also, we should not over-estimate how highly Lee Johnson is thought of by some big Premier League club. For him to choose to come back to Bristol City is absolutely the right fit and it has made a lot of people within the industry sit up and ask 'what is happening there?'' http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/xx/story-29018277-detail/story.html
'Alignment' 'if everyone's not aligned' 'if you're not aligned'. Just utter bullshit jargon. ................. Ashton is not aligned.
Yeah let's rubbish his talk, before he has chance to demonstrate it. Or we could just wait and see what the summer brings because his involvement in the loan market since he's joined hasn't been too bad has it? I know which side of the fence I'm on.
I spent two days in London with all the big agents earlier this month, having a coffee with them, re-introducing myself and talking to them about the players they want to move on in the summer, in order that we can be ahead of the game."They are all excited about Bristol City, because they see the club as one of the last sleeping giants, one of the last really big clubs with a huge fan base not to have made it to the Premier League." Been saying the above for 30+ years,it just needs uncorking,do we have the people in place to take us to the next level. This time next year we will have a better idea.
Good to see networking, however we have to be wary of agents using our interest as a catalyst for bigger deals as we've found out with Grey, Konciesky etc
Give the man a chance for goodness sake. Seems too many of us are hardwired for failure and gloom...........
Exactly. He's been in the job something like 3 months and in that time we've bought in some quality to climb the table so what exactly has he done wrong to deserve some of these comments?
Appears to be doing a reasonable job, only time will tell. Not an easy bloke to like, patronising, smarmy tosspot for me.
Very very harsh to lump it all on the shoulders of Cotterill & Burt. The previous season, you know the one where we won a league and a cup, their ability to bring players in quickly was hailed as a major factor in our succsess, so where did it all go wrong. Gray would have signed had we paid the wages he wanted, I do not know where the disconnect was, but if you bid £9 Mill for a player, he (or his agent) isn't go to be fobbed off with £10-20k a week in wages. Surely SL knows this by now!! So was SC told he had £9Mill for the deal, and SL assumed he realised this included the wage component, and did SC think that was the money for a fee and wages will follow, either way the communication between the board and SC was pi$$ poor last summer. All the talk of unrealsitic players makes me think we will not even attempt to pursue big names this summer, and will look to pick up young Premership clubs cast offs. The only 'Alignmnet' the club need to understand and move forward with is, that between the size of a bid and the expected wages to go with it.
The role of a chairman is ensure that his direct reports deliver the board's policy. Central to that is "alignment and unity "or any other similar term (singing from the same hymn sheet). It's all bullshit. Every supporter can see whether the transfer policy is working OK or not. Clearly last year it was not.
